Five steps into online multiplayer games on a desktop computer
This is a short written course for people in Australia who have never played an online multiplayer game on a Windows, Mac or Linux computer and would like to understand what they are agreeing to before they start.
Reading the whole thing takes about forty minutes. You can also read one step a day for five days, because each step ends in a checklist you can print and work through at the keyboard before you move on.
How this site is paid for
Plain Pulse carries paid affiliate links. If you follow one of them to the World of Tanks sign-up page and create and activate an account there, the affiliate network that operates the link pays us a commission. You pay nothing extra, and nothing on this site asks you for money. That commission does not decide what the five steps say, which checks they ask you to run, or which products are named in them. The funding page sets out the arrangement in full.
The five steps, in order
- Step 1 — What "free to play" actually meansWhere the money comes from in a game with no purchase price, and what you are signing up to.
- Step 2 — Can your computer and your connection handle it?How to find your own hardware details and read a requirements list without guessing.
- Step 3 — Reading the terms, the rating and the spending rulesAccount terms, the Australian classification, and the parts about purchases and randomised items.
- Step 4 — Making the account and surviving the first sessionsA general procedure for signing up, securing the account and getting through the first few hours.
- Step 5 — Time, money, other players and leavingSetting your own limits, handling other people, and how to stop if you want to.
There is also an all-checklists page that gathers the five checklists on one sheet for printing.
Who this course is for, and who it is not for
This course is written for an adult in Australia who has a desktop or laptop computer running Windows, macOS or Linux, who has heard about online multiplayer games from a friend or a relative, and who would like to try one without first having to learn a vocabulary they never asked for.
It assumes nothing. It explains each term the first time the term appears, and it does not assume you have ever installed a game, used a game launcher, or had an account with a game publisher.
It is not for you if you want a walkthrough of a particular game's menus, a guide to winning matches, or technical support for a problem you already have. It is also not for a phone or tablet: the game used as the worked example in this course runs on desktop computers only, so everything here is written for a keyboard, a mouse and a screen on a desk.
If you are a parent or carer working out whether a particular game suits a child in your household, Step 3 is the part to read first. It covers the Australian classification system and the sections of a game's terms that deal with purchases.
The one check to run before anything else
Do this before you create any account
Write down, on paper, the operating system your computer runs, how much memory it has, and what graphics hardware is in it. Step 2 shows you where to find all three in under five minutes. People who skip this are the ones who install something, find it unplayable, and then spend an evening undoing it. It is the single check that most often gets left until it is too late to matter.
Everything else in this course can be done in any order you like once the first two steps are behind you. The sequence exists because each step is easier if you have read the one before it, not because anything bad happens if you jump ahead.
What you will be able to do at the end of each step
| Step | After reading it you can |
|---|---|
| 1 | Explain in your own words how a game with no purchase price earns money, and name the three ways that usually happens. |
| 2 | Find your own operating system version, memory and graphics hardware, and compare them against a published requirements list. |
| 3 | Find the classification for a game sold or distributed in Australia, and locate the refund, purchase and account-closure clauses in a set of terms. |
| 4 | Create an account with a strong, unique password and a second authentication factor, and know what the first session normally involves. |
| 5 | Set a time and spending limit that you decide in advance, deal with other players sensibly, and close an account when you want to. |
A worked example runs through the whole course
Each step follows the same hypothetical household: two adults sharing a five-year-old desktop computer in a flat in an Australian capital city, with an ordinary home internet connection and no gaming experience between them. The household is invented for teaching purposes. It is not a real family, it is not a customer, and it never reports how well any product worked for it.
The example exists to make the abstract parts concrete. When Step 2 says "compare your memory against the published minimum", the example shows what that looks like for a machine that has 8 GB of memory and a requirements list that asks for more. When Step 5 talks about setting a spending limit, the example shows one way a household might agree on one.
How much of this costs nothing
All five steps, all five checklists and the printable sheet cost nothing and require no account on this site. There is no sign-up, no email list and no saved progress, because the site collects nothing at all.
A great deal of the underlying activity is also free. Finding your hardware details uses tools already on your computer. Reading a classification decision is free. Password managers and two-factor authentication apps have capable free versions. Most online multiplayer games of the type described here can be installed and played without paying, which is exactly why Step 1 spends its time on where the money actually comes from instead.
Where World of Tanks appears in the course, and why
World of Tanks is an online multiplayer game that runs on desktop computers — Windows, macOS and Linux. It is used in this course as the single concrete example of the category, so that the general advice has something specific to point at. It is also the product behind the affiliate links on this site, which is why that sentence is on the homepage rather than buried.
The vendor's own facts are the vendor's to state. This course does not repeat claims about the game's scale, performance or features; where you want that detail, the vendor's site is the place to read it. What this course does instead is show you which questions to ask of any game in this category, including that one.
You can finish every step of this course, print every checklist and get everything useful out of it without following that link once. Nothing in the course depends on it.
Australian organisations worth knowing
Several Australian government bodies publish free material that covers parts of this ground better than any private site could, and the steps link to them where they are relevant.
- The Australian Classification Board classifies films, games and certain publications for sale and distribution in Australia.
- The Australian Cyber Security Centre publishes the Australian Government's advice on securing accounts and devices.
- Scamwatch, run by the National Anti-Scam Centre, collects reports of scams and publishes warnings about current ones.
- The eSafety Commissioner is Australia's independent regulator for online safety, including online abuse.
- The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner oversees privacy law and handles privacy complaints.
- The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission administers the Australian Consumer Law, including consumer guarantees.
How the course is written and kept current
The course is written and maintained by the EAS company s.r.o. editorial team. Each step was drafted from the published material of the Australian bodies listed above, from the terms and classification information that any reader can look up, and from the plain mechanics of desktop computers that do not change often.
Where a statement is general guidance rather than a sourced fact, it is written as guidance. Where it depends on a vendor's own terms, the step tells you to go and read those terms, because they change and we do not control them. The review date in the footer of every page is the last time the whole course was read through and corrected. The About page describes the method in more detail, including the commercial relationship behind the affiliate links.
Short answers to four common questions
Does this course cost anything?
No. There is no fee, no account and no paywall. The site is funded by affiliate commission, which is explained on the funding page.
Do I have to read the steps in order?
No, but Steps 1 and 2 make the rest easier, so they are worth reading first. Nothing on the site tracks where you are up to.
Can I follow this course on a phone or tablet?
You can read it on anything. The advice itself is written for desktop and laptop computers, because the game used as the example runs on Windows, macOS and Linux only.
Do I have to buy anything to finish the course?
No. Every checklist can be completed without spending money, and the course says so at each point where spending becomes possible.